http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-newschools0523.artmay23,0,7955486.story?coll=hc-headlines-home
Schools Facing Radical Change
City Superintendent Will Seek Biggest Overhaul In Decades
By ROBERT A. FRAHM
Courant Staff Writer
May 23 2007
Hartford's top school official will call today for a massive shake-up
of the city's troubled public education system by closing failing
schools, breaking up large high schools and giving students a broad
array of new choices.
School Superintendent Steven J. Adamowski's plan would radically alter
the 24,000-student system by creating choices such as a year-round
elementary school, all-boys or all-girls academies and high schools
specializing in subjects ranging from nursing to military studies.
He will outline the plan later today for the school board, proposing a
series of small to medium-size specialty schools that would replace
failing schools and become the centerpiece of an effort to shore up
lagging academic performance.
"This is an issue of closing the achievement gap," Adamowski said. The
traditional 20th-century model of schools, he added, "is not working
for us."
The plan would mark the biggest change in decades for a school system
that has gone through a series of superintendents and tried remedies
ranging from a failed experiment with private management to a state
takeover of the city schools in the 1990s.
Across the nation, many school districts have expanded choices through
the creation of magnet and charter schools, but the Hartford plan, if
adopted, would be one of the most ambitious anywhere.
The plan would begin taking effect in 2008, with most schools ready
within five years and the entire plan completed within a decade,
Adamowski said.
The proposal is the latest and most dramatic so far to come from
Adamowski, a veteran school administrator who was hired last year to
try to turn around a school system whose test scores are among the
worst in the state.
He has already called for other major changes, including reducing the
size of the central administration and giving greater autonomy to
schools that demonstrate success.
In today's proposal, he will recommend converting the city's schools
"from a bureaucratic, dysfunctional, low-performing school system
to ... a system of high-performing, distinctive schools of choice."
That system would include a range of new schools, including new
Montessori schools for children from primary grades through high
school, charter schools modeled after the successful Amistad Academy
in New Haven, a rigorous International Baccalaureate school and even a
boarding school.
One proposed school for teenage mothers would include infant and
toddler care.
Other suggestions include:
A year-round school for children in grades kindergarten through 8.
A British primary school modeled after traditional West Indian
schools.
A "core knowledge" school based on an approach outlined by author E.D.
Hirsch in his book "Cultural Literacy," calling for the teaching of
basic factual knowledge required to function adequately in society.
Schools linking elementary, middle and high school students in
specialties including visual and performing arts and international
programs such as Asian or Latino studies.
The new schools would replace some of the city's lowest-performing
schools, Adamowski said. In addition, the city's large high school
buildings, such as the newly remodeled Hartford Public High School,
would be reconfigured to house several of the smaller specialty
schools, he said.
Adamowski will recommend using Hartford Public as a temporary site for
the Pathways to Technology school while officials look for a permanent
location for the magnet high school.
Adamowski's plan also would make use of some existing schools of
choice such as the Breakthrough Magnet School, the Capital Preparatory
Magnet School, the Greater Hartford Classical Magnet School and the
University of Hartford's High School for Science and Engineering, but
the city needs more choices for families, he said. Many children are
on waiting lists for those schools and other magnet schools in and
around Hartford.
"Right now we have a dual system of schools - a few high-end magnet
schools that do relatively better and the schools where everyone else
goes ... which are not doing well," Adamowski said. "We want to
provide all students with a choice, not just those who are lucky
enough to win an admissions lottery."
His proposal does not call for more financial support, but some of the
specialty schools would require partnerships and support from other
agencies or businesses, he said. He is proposing, for example, new
technical programs in cooperation with the state technical high school
system and a financial services high school operated in collaboration
with insurance companies.
Under the proposal, the city would be divided into four zones for
children in grades K-8, giving free busing to students and allowing
them to choose from schools within each zone. High school students
would use public transportation under an open enrollment plan allowing
them to attend any school in the city.
Contact Robert A. Frahm at rfrahm@courant.com.
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